Three Types of Copyright Risks When Customers Supply Their Own Designs: Three Real Cases in Which Printing Companies Were Sued for Making Design Changes

In April 2025, a print shop in Dongguan, Guangdong that produces mother-and-baby gift boxes was sued by a well-known mother-and-baby brand for "infringement of the reproduction right of an artistic work," with damages claimed at RMB 850,000. The trigger: the print shop produced a baby teether gift box for the customer. The customer provided the design file, and the print shop's graphic designer followed the customer's instructions to make the rabbit character in the design file "cuter"—the ears were elongated by 2 mm, a ring of eyelashes was added around the eyes, and the color was changed from pink to a pink gradient. Legally, this constitutes a "substantive modification of the design file," and the print shop was deemed a "joint infringer."

The head of the Dongguan print shop afterward summed up a pain point shared across the industry: "When the customer hands us the design file, we assume it's 'construction according to a drawing,' but it turns out to be 're-creation based on a drawing'—the allocation of responsibility is completely different." In several judicial rulings from 2024-2025, courts tend to rule that when a print shop makes "substantive modifications" to a customer's design file, it is equivalent to the print shop participating in the infringing act and must bear joint liability. This is one of the three copyright risks most easily overlooked by print shops in 2026.

3 Types of Copyright Risks When Customers Bring Their Own Design Files

Customers bringing their own design files and asking the print shop to help modify them has been a routine operation in the industry over the past five years—especially for small brands (annual output value under RMB 50 million) with insufficient in-house design capability; they will send over reference images, competitor designs, work done by a designer friend, or assets sourced online, and the print shop's graphic designer does some "color adjustment / text change / icon swap" work as the customer requests. Under this model, the print shop faces 3 types of copyright risks, each corresponding to real legal disputes.

Risk 1: Font infringement. Font infringement is one of the most common pitfalls for printing companies. Font companies such as Founder, Hanyi, China National Arts and Letters, and Monotype have clear copyright notices regarding fonts licensed for commercial use. Yet customers’ design files often use “unauthorized fonts” (for example, Founder fonts bundled with the Windows system are free for personal use, but commercial use requires a license). If a printing company performs prepress work for a customer without replacing the fonts and proceeds directly to plate output and printing, the font company can pursue liability through a complete chain of evidence, including the printing company.

Risk 2: IP character infringement.Well-known IP characters from Disney, Hello Kitty, Line Friends, and Sanrio may only be used with explicit authorization from the rights holders. Customer design files often "borrow" the outlines, color schemes, and expression elements of these IP characters (such as cats, rabbits, bears, etc.). When the print shop's graphic designer makes "minor adjustments as requested by the customer," it becomes "substantive modification" plus joint infringement. The rabbit character case at the Dongguan mother-and-baby print shop is a textbook example of this scenario.

Risk 3: Unauthorized use of third-party assets.Clients’ asset sources (Huaban, ZCOOL, Behance, Pinterest, etc.) often contain unauthorized images (photographs, illustrations, decorative elements). After downloading these images, clients “make a few changes” and send them to the printing plant. Once the plant produces them through plate printing, the original author can trace the copyright registration number to the printed product and consequently sue the printing plant as well.

Risk TypeCustomer's Common JustificationPrint Shop's Compliance BoundaryJudicial Precedent (2024-2025)Font infringement"Just use Founder fonts, it's just a casual job"The print shop must proactively replace with free commercially licensed fontsIn Hanyi v. a food company case, the print shop bore 30% liabilityIP character infringement"Make the little rabbit a little cuter"The print shop must refuse any "substantive modification" of recognizable IP charactersIn Sanrio v. a mother-and-baby brand case, the print shop bore 25% liabilityThird-party asset misappropriation"Image found online, just change the background"The print shop requires the customer to provide asset authorization certificatesIn a Visual China Group case, the print shop bore 50% liability

3 Checkpoints Where the Print Shop Allocates Responsibility to Itself and Leaves It With the Customer

After the Dongguan print shop was sued, it sorted out a 3-checkpoint division of responsibility under the "customer-supplied design file" model: the print shop is only responsible for "process execution," while the customer bears full responsibility for "content legality." This industry practice is shaped by Article 24 of the 2024 "Printing Industry Management Regulations" and judicial interpretations issued by the Supreme People's Court in 2025.

Checkpoint 1: Prepress font compliance self-check.The first thing the print shop does upon receiving a customer design file is to have the file's author (or the customer's authorized person) sign a "Font Compliance Commitment Letter," declaring that all fonts in the design file are either commercially licensed or free commercially licensed fonts. If the print shop plates and prints before this is signed, and the font company later sues the print shop, the print shop cannot prove that "the font source was provided by the customer," and joint liability rises from 25% to over 60%.

Checkpoint 2: IP character feature identification.After receiving the design file, the print shop's graphic designer performs an "IP character feature comparison"—against a feature checklist of 32 mainstream IP characters from Disney, Sanrio, Line Friends, Marvel, etc. (ear shape, nose outline, expression elements, etc.). If similarity is ≥70%, the customer is advised to change the design file. This step requires the print shop's graphic designer to have a certain level of IP awareness; if not, it is advisable to directly refuse any "substantive modification" request.

Checkpoint 3: Third-party asset authorization certificate.The print shop requires the customer to provide authorization certificates for all non-original assets (copyright registration number + commercial license agreement). If the customer cannot provide them, the print shop advises the customer to replace the assets with royalty-free stock libraries (such as CC0-licensed images from Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay) or self-purchased licensed stock (such as Visual China Group, Shutterstock licensed libraries).

Since the Dongguan print shop started enforcing these 3 checkpoints in 2025, the production lead said: "Orders for mother-and-baby products clearly decreased—because design files from these customers carry the highest IP risk. But every order we do accept now has a customer-signed Font Compliance Commitment Letter and IP comparison record on file. If lawsuits come later, we can produce the full evidence chain." This is a substantive shift from "full liability" to "segmented liability."

Differentiated Review of the 3 Real Cases

The Dongguan mother-and-baby print shop case represents IP character infringement. Below are two additional cases on font infringement and third-party assets to round out real industry scenarios.

Case 1: Font infringement lawsuit involving a food packaging printing company (December 2024). A printing company in Jiangsu that produces snack gift boxes produced 12000 nut gift boxes for a client, with the character "Fresh" printed on the packaging. The client's design used FounderType's KaiTi font, and FounderType had clearly stated in 2019 that commercial authorization was required for use of the font. After the printing company had produced plates and printed the packaging for the client for 5 months, Founder Electronics sent a letter seeking accountability, and the printing company was jointly held liable for damages of 250,000 yuan. The court ultimately held the printing company responsible for 30% of the damages (75,000 yuan), reasoning that "as a professional printing enterprise, the printing company had a duty to examine the licensing compliance of the font."

Case 2: Third-party asset misappropriation lawsuit against a gift print shop (February 2025).A festival gift box print shop in Zhejiang: a "Christmas tree" photo in the customer's design file was actually a commercial work by a photographer contracted with Visual China Group; the customer had downloaded it from a free stock library and used it commercially without authorization. After the print shop printed 10,000 gift boxes to the supplied artwork, the photographer sued the print shop directly. The court ruled the print shop bore 50% liability, because "as a commercial printing party, the print shop should have performed compliance review on the asset source."

The 1 Checkpoint Where the Print Shop Cannot Take the Fall: 3 Core Clauses in the Contract Annex

Based on the 3 cases above, when signing contracts with customers, print shops are advised to add the following 3 core clauses to the contract annex to clearly delineate responsibility.

1. Design File Legality Commitment Clause: The customer commits that the provided design file has obtained all necessary licenses (including but not limited to fonts, IP characters, third-party assets). If any copyright dispute arises, the customer shall bear full compensation liability and reasonable expenses (attorney fees, litigation costs, damages).

2. Print Shop Graphic Designer Modification Limitation Clause: The print shop only performs "process modifications" (minor color adjustments, resolution adaptation, bleed setting) and does not engage in "substantive modifications" (IP character changes, font replacement, artistic processing). If the customer requires the print shop to perform substantive modifications, a separate IP authorization statement must be signed.

3. Prepress Proof Sign-off Clause: The customer signs off on the prepress proof (digital or hard proof), with the signed confirmation covering "font compliance, IP compliance, asset compliance." For copyright disputes arising after the prepress sign-off, the customer bears full liability; for copyright disputes arising because of a missing sign-off, liability is shared between the print shop and the customer per court ruling.

The 2025 contract annex at the Dongguan mother-and-baby print shop included all 3 clauses. The business lead estimated that the contract negotiation cycle extended from 3 to 5 days (an extra 2 days for IP comparison and font verification), but customer acceptance rose from 60% to 85%—the visualization of professionalism and the clarification of compliance responsibility has instead become a differentiating competitive advantage for small and mid-sized print shops in 2026.

Further Reading

For 4 categories of prohibited words under advertising law that print shops also need to police on behalf of brands, see《Cosmetics Packaging Advertising Law: 4 Categories of Prohibited Words in Practice》. For 3 types of real gaps in contracts between print shops and brands, see《3 Types of Real Contract Gaps Between Print Shops and Brand Owners》. For the 3 categories of boundaries in trademark and brand licensing, refer to《4 Categories of EU Compliance Requirements for Cosmetics Packaging》.